04-18-2010, 05:11 PM
Took the wife steelheading yesterday. Started out at dead mans hole outside Challis. Saw a guy get one fish on and spent the better part of an hour re-rigging my wife set up. She somehow kept getting the hook caught on something and breaking it off. After about the 5th set I told her she couldn't cast there anymore. We moved on to Squaw Creek where it was much busier, but we were able to find a hole w/ plenty of room around it and started throwing the fly rod. I soon had a couple light hits, most likely from small trout. I worked my way down to a channel next to the bank and floated the set along the edge of the channel and some rapids. After about an hour with multiple hits from small trout (6-12" range) my strike indicator goes under and fish on! Steelhead even! Took a little time, but managed to land him after about 5 minutes. Bonked it and back at it. I ended up hooking 4 more steelies on the fly rod and eventually turned over full time use of it to my wife who hooked 3 steelies, but was unable to land them. She did land a squaw fish to keep the skunk off though. In the meantime I started bottom bouncing just upstream and managed to land 2 more, one native, one hatchery. Also had one on that peeled off about 30-40 yds of line and got tangled up then foul hooked before finally throwing the hook for good. Would have loved to see that one up close. I lost track of how many I had on but lost. Easily 12 or more. Over all, a personal best for me steelheading.
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and he lost the fish after several minutes. I was bummed but not Avery. He just said "Well that was fun, I guess I'll just have the catch another on". That was the end though and we needed to get home. Good trip!
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